1. Field
The following description relates to sound processing, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for providing a natural auditory environment using psychoacoustic effects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with the progressive development of electronic equipment, such as TVs, home theater systems, slimline mobile phones, and the like, the demand for compact loudspeakers has increased. However, most compact loudspeakers have limitations in the frequency range of sound that they can generate due to their lack of size. In particular, compact speakers have a problem with sound quality deterioration in intermediate to low frequency regions.
Along with the demands for compact speakers, there is an increasing interest in “personal sound zone” technology that transfers sound to a specific listener without utilizing earphones or headsets. This technology prevents noise pollution to adjacent persons. A personal sound zone may be implemented using the direction at which sound is output from a speaker. The direction of sound may be generated by passing sound signals through functional filters such as time delay filters to create sound beams, thereby concentrating sound in a particular direction or in a particular position. However, an existing speaker structure is usually composed of a plurality of speakers and requires miniaturization of the individual loudspeakers, which is a factor that limits frequency band availability.